GE Printing Engine Fuel Nozzles Propels $6 Billion Market

ales of 3-D printers and related services rose 29 percent to $2.2 billion last year and are poised to keep climbing as manufacturers buy industrial-grade systems able to produce metal parts, according to a forecast from Fort Collins, Colorado-based Wohlers Associates. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- General Electric Co. is on the hunt
for ways to build more than 85,000 fuel nozzles for its newest
jet engine. Instead of assembling them from 20 different parts,
it plans to create the units in one piece -- with 3-D printers.

Constructing the components with lasers one layer at a time
will producer stronger, lighter nozzles than with conventional
machining, according to GE. That means ensuring the printers
evolve into equipment sturdy enough for assembly-line
production, not just tools to fashion plastic prototypes.

To do so, GE plans to spend tens of millions of dollars to
help get machines ready for its purposes, triple the aviation
business’s 70-person 3-D printing staff and expand the factory
floor fourfold in the coming years. The push would bolster a 3-D
industry that consultant Wohlers Associates estimates is poised
to almost triple to about $6 billion annually by 2017.

“Their investment changes everything, and it’s also
unprecedented,” said the firm’s president, Terry Wohlers, who
has published an annual report tracking 3-D technology for 18
years. “They see a big need, and a lot of demand but the supply
is not there.”

GE’s embrace of 3-D printing for critical components able
to withstand lava-like temperatures throws the weight of the
world’s largest jet-engine maker behind a process invented in
the 1980s and once relied on just to fabricate scale models.

‘Too Many’

“With today’s technology, it would take too many
machines,” said Greg Morris, business development leader for
additive manufacturing at Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE. “We
can start ramping up with the current generation of technology,
but within two to three years we’re going to have to be onto the
next generation to meet our cost targets.”

Additive manufacturing refers to a successive layering of
material to create a finished product. With GE’s direct metal
laser melting, fine alloy powder is sprayed onto a platform in a
printer, then heated by a laser. About about 3,000 repetitions,
the result is a nozzle that can work inside an engine running at
2,400 degrees Fahrenheit (1,315 degrees Celsius).

Sales of 3-D printers and related services rose 29 percent
to $2.2 billion last year and are poised to keep climbing as
manufacturers buy industrial-grade systems able to produce metal
parts, according to a forecast from Fort Collins, Colorado-based
Wohlers Associates.

Aerospace Printing

The aerospace market alone for 3-D printers may triple to
$1 billion “over time,” Credit Suisse Group AG said in a Sept.
17 note. United Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney unit, a GE
rival for jet-engine sales, opened an additive manufacturing
research center at the University of Connecticut in April.

Morris wouldn’t elaborate on GE’s 3-D spending plans beyond
saying the total would run into the “tens of millions” of
dollars. It’s part of a $3.5 billion investment in the company’s
aerospace supply chain. Morris, 47, has a personal connection to
the work: He joined GE last year after it acquired his 3-D
company, Morris Technologies.

GE’s first 85,000 nozzles are for engine orders in hand, a
start toward annual output that Morris projects may reach 45,000
units as sales grow -- and more-capable 3-D printers become
available.

They’re going into GE’s new Leap engine, each of which will
have 19 nozzles. Printing them whole instead of assembling them
from separate parts saves weight and boosts efficiency by
permitting designs that can’t be achieved with traditional
techniques, GE has said.

More Efficiency

Existing printers just aren’t efficient enough to meet that
demand, and GE would have to buy 60 to 70 expensive machines to
achieve its targets, Morris said. Instead, the company awaits
development of new printers that may have three to four times
the capacity, Morris said.

That need is creating opportunities for companies such as
3D Systems Corp., the largest maker of 3-D printers. GE, which
has 35 3-D printers from EOS GmbH and Arcam AB, is testing
equipment from Rock Hill, South Carolina-based 3D Systems and
Concept Laser GmbH.

“We’re fairly confident we’re part of GE’s scale-up
plan,” 3D Systems Chief Executive Officer Avi Reichental said
in a telephone interview. “We have an excellent relationship
with GE at the highest levels, and we’ve been collaborating with
them for several years now on a variety of additive
manufacturing applications.”

Stratasys Ltd., the second-biggest publicly traded maker of
additive systems, is developing machines that can print in metal
as well as considering takeovers, Chairman Scott Crump said this
year. Shane Glenn, vice president of investor relations, said
the company couldn’t comment on new product development or its
acquisition strategy.

Industry Surge

Investors are watching, too. 3D Systems more than doubled
this year through yesterday, while Stratasys jumped 59 percent,
beating the 27 percent advance for the Standard & Poor’s 400
Midcap Index, to which they both belong. GE gained 29 percent.

Its influence will extend to providers of advanced alloy
powders and producers of specialized design software, Furstoss
said, giving GE the opportunity to guide the growth of the
industry. Morris said joint ventures or other investments are
possible.

“‘There doesn’t exist a supply chain out there right now
for this kind of work,” Morris said. “GE has to be involved in
developing it.”

Training, Testing

To train workers and let engineers test new applications,
GE is creating a combined research and manufacturing facility
dubbed a “microfactory” near its aviation headquarters in
Cincinnati. Other microfactories focus on rapid prototyping
using 3-D printing in Louisville, Kentucky, and on advanced
ceramic composite materials in Newark, Delaware.

“We’re taking new technologies, 3-D printing being one,
and trying to understand what it really takes to make a factory
and integrate this,” Furstoss said.

Buying Evendale, Ohio-based Morris Technologies was part of
that expansion. GE’s size -- its aviation business had $19.3
billion in revenue last year -- gives it an advantage in
bringing additive manufacturing into its production lines, said
Todd Grimm, president of 3-D printing consultant T.A. Grimm &
Associates Inc. in Edgewood, Kentucky.

“GE will lead,” Grimm said in a telephone interview.
“Average companies are looking at years before they get this
under their belt in a big way.”